media101thomasburgoynesmith - Tumblr blog

[media101thomasburgoynesmith]

Fake it till you make it

Fake News Story: Alex Jones blames “psychosis” for his Sandy Hook conspiracies

Source: https://www.vox.com/2019/3/31/18289271/alex-jones-psychosis-conspiracies-sandy-hook-hoax

According to Allcott & Gentzkow (2017), “Fake news stories are intentionally false, and could mislead readers”. Majority of fake news stories are found through social media and most are designed to catch the eye of readers using forms of ‘clickbait’. Some shared satirically but most shared by those fooled by said media outlets. An example of this would be when celebrity singer/actor Nick Jonas was said to be dead in 2009 as a result of a cardiac arrest due to diabetes. These kind of stories only give said celebrity more exposure or force them to be more present in the public eye. 

 Alex Jones is an American, far right conspiracy theorist who is known for coming up with ridiculous theories such as chemicals in the water that turned the majority of frogs gay to saying that former first lady Hillary Clinton ran a child sex ring in a pizza parlour. But Jones’ most consequential theory was saying that the 2012 Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting was a hoax. Saying that all 26 deaths (20 of those being children) were “crisis actors” and the staging was to try promote more restrictive gun control policies. 8 families have placed lawsuits against Jones, claiming immense personal pain and being harrassed by Jones followers. In the Youtube clip in the article above it shows Jones reacting to his own footage of him ‘mocking’ the parents of Sandy Hook saying they were only crying for the camera. He now believes that the 2012 shooting did occur and that the children did die but still insists that the families suing him are agents of the Democratic Party.

This story definitely exposed Jones for his ridiculousness in his theory and made him out to be a fool throughout international media outlets. Even though it was only a conspiracy, his hoax pulled him into the light of actual media outlets and outed him for his questionable points of view.

As soon as Jones’ theories were heard by all and were obviously seen as something negative, he dropped his theory and crept back into his hole.

Resources:

Higgins,T. (2018)   Alex Jones’ 5 most disturbing and ridiculous conspiracy theories. https://www.cnbc.com/2018/09/14/alex-jones-5-most-disturbing-ridiculous-conspiracy-theories.html

Sakuma,A. (2019)  Alex Jones blames “psychosis” for his Sandy Hook conspiracies https://www.vox.com/2019/3/31/18289271/alex-jones-psychosis-conspiracies-sandy-hook-hoax

The Guardian. (2019) https://www.cnbc.com/2018/09/14/alex-jones-5-most-disturbing-ridiculous-conspiracy-theories.html

[media101thomasburgoynesmith]

Charli XCX and her Boys

Charli XCX is a british born music artist who rose to fame in 2013 with her hit song “I love it”. Since then has released many songs and collaborated with artists from Iggy Azalea to Troye Sivan, but in this blog I’ll be discussing the ideas and concepts behind one of her more recent songs “Boys” released in 2017.

Overall the concept and thought behind the song and music video is fairly basic. Singing about boys and showing iconic/famous adult men doing cute things such as playing with puppies or lying in rose petals. The kind of song/music video mainly targeted at teenage girls. I assume they would watch/listen to said song because they could relate to the lyrics or possibly like seeing their favourite male celebrity’s appearance.

My main thought while watching the music video was what if a male had written the lyrics and music video and had gender swapped it from being about boys/men to being about girls/women. It would possibly have a very different appeal of course, but would it have caused any possible controversy? One example of a music video like that would be Robin Thicke's “Blurred Lines” which caused controversy in the United Kingdom back in 2013 and was mentioned in “The Guardian” as “the most controversial song of the decade” because of it’s objectification of women. The main problem with Thicke’s song was with the lyrics, but the music video also objectified women. In a way could Charli XCX “Boys” be objectifying men? Obviously not in this reality but still in the video showing men as some form of “eyecandy”.

A stereotype I noticed during the music video was all the boys/men in the music video were well above average looking. Yes it is more appealing to the eye to see a good looking person doing something to make them look more attractive, but obviously it is not very realistic. There are a few certain moments that aren’t exactly the most attractive, such as Tommy Cash eating a flower. I believe they add moments like this into the video to show that boys doing random things such as that are considered quirky.

The amount of attention this music video has had is quite large with over 110 million views on Youtube. I do not believe it is as relevant as it once was because trends are always changing and new music is being released constantly, but still is a song heard every now and then. It never really caused any controversy because males in society are not as prone to being objectified compared to women.

Overall the video itself is quite well shot and very aesthetically pleasing, but an indepth look into the song and video shows that men can be shown as something to stare at. In my personal opinion we are all humans and at the end of the day, we all like looking at each other and appreciating each other too.

APA:

The Guardian. (2013). Blurred Lines: the most controversial song of the decade. Retrieved from https://www.theguardian.com